


The Funeral of a Good Friendship

by shirogiku



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Books, But Why Is The Hair Gone?, Crack and Angst, Drinking, Drunken Shenanigans, Eleanor's New Clothes, Gen, Granny Is Also Dead, Long John Silver - Freeform, Male-Female Friendship, Miranda's House, Mr Scott Is Dead, Post-Season/Series 03, Rogers Does Not Impress Flint Much, Somebody Burn That Chair, Spanish Spies Everywhere, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-26
Updated: 2016-04-26
Packaged: 2018-06-04 17:02:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6666904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shirogiku/pseuds/shirogiku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“If this isn’t a trap, then what the devil <i>is</i> it?”</p><p>“The funeral of a good friendship.” Because it deserved that much.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Funeral of a Good Friendship

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CaptainRivaini](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainRivaini/gifts).
  * In response to a prompt by [CaptainRivaini](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainRivaini/pseuds/CaptainRivaini) in the [pirate_prompts_2016](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/pirate_prompts_2016) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> Eleanor and James meet again. Their reunion is not a happy one and it is the last one they will have before the war begins. Can be sad, can be crack, can be anything as long as the two of them interact.

As the night fell and the wind rose, silent stood the house of the late Mrs. Barlow, dust and disorder reigning where a lively clutter had once been. But a silence such as this could only ever be an interlude. 

For ten long years, the place had been a witch’s haunt, cloaked and undisturbed - only to become a shapeshifter. Superstition was a sailor’s lot, but even as Eleanor pressed a key on a whim, producing a jarring musical note, she could have sworn that something answered her from deeper within.

She had never had the patience to master an instrument. Music lessons had been among the first to go in the negotiations over what was and was not fit for a young lady’s daily schedule, growing up in a place like Nassau. If she looked back far enough, she would hear the drums, a brown hand as small as hers beating out a rhythm. It had not been a war-song; war-songs must sound exactly like an approaching pirate fleet.

There was a simple tune that Mother used to play, simple enough to stick in the memory. Eleanor tried to recreate it, but was forced to admit defeat.

The one advantage of a prolonged stay in Newgate is learning to read the sounds of footsteps and see very well in the dark. She waited on the bench, a pistol on her lap and a winecup in her left hand.

Flint’s tread had grown both heavier and lighter since they last saw each other. He called out a name and then brought himself short, looming like a thunderstorm coming ashore. The house did not seem large enough to contain him. His stance had shifted subtly as he readied himself to fight his way through an ambush.

“Always giving up your allies,“ she said by way of ‘hello’. “That’s what they say about me, anyhow.” She held out the wine. “Drink? It’s not poisoned, in case you were wondering.” She took a sip to demonstrate that.

He walked past the second cup on the table. “If this isn’t a trap, then what the devil _is_ it?”

“The funeral of a good friendship.” Because it deserved that much. “Or one final conversation. By all means, you are free to walk out that door and fetch your reinforcements.”

“I have nothing to say to you.” He continued advancing on her, the still, deadly set of face telling her that _he_ was not the one in greater danger or in need of reinforcements here. Instinctively, she cocked her weapon, remembering how swiftly he could move. “Nor have you any right to be under this roof.”

“Hypocrite.” Their eyes met when he was just a stride away. “I know you, Captain Flint. You are many things, but being above an occasional bout of nostalgia isn’t one of them.”

“You _used_ to know me,” he corrected her darkly. “Before Miranda’s death.”

“If you insult me with laying that at my door, on top of everything else, I _will_ shoot you.” He and the Barlow woman had brought their tragedy on themselves. It was all part of how civilisation worked, of course, but the decision to trust the wrong man had been theirs and theirs alone. Eleanor remained committed to its return to her island - it was Flint who had chosen vengeance over prosperity. “You knew me before I was thrown to the wolves.” Her lips formed a small, cheerless smile. “There's a lot of catching up to do, and I’m sure we both have some surprises in store for each other. First of all, I haven’t come empty-handed.”

He withdrew, his wary look never straying from its mark. “A new translation of _Phaedo_.”

“Mr. Theobald is quite good at his job.”

“And _Oedipus Rex_.” Flint’s mouth curled with a touch of wry humour. “The Governor reads, I take it?”

“Not even nearly enough to impress you.” Her smile was gathering substance. “But who said anything about these being from his library? Maybe I had time to visit a bookshop and pick a personal gift.” She glanced down her green gown as if to add that she had definitely found a gap in her busy schedule for new clothes.

Making up his mind, Flint took a seat and began leafing through the pages without any apparent hurry. He would note that the editions were fresh. “How did you like London?”

Now that bloody murder had been postponed, he must realise the merit of relearning your opponent. She had been told that she had never fought a war before, but she was nothing if not a quick study.

“It was fucking terrible,” she admitted, not even referring to the gaol. “Worse than Boston.”

He finally reached for the cup. “How did you know I would be here tonight?”

She leaned forward, folding her arms over her chest. “I said a _conversation_ , not all cards on the table. Though I wouldn’t mind you putting your pistol where I can see it.”

“Too late, I have already shot you.” He pushed out a chair for her with his foot, a silent invitation.

He had wolf eyes too, keen and alert. He _used_ to be a man of reason, but the rules of the game had changed once more since his meeting with Rogers on the beach. And it was her turn to find out the new ones.

It had been Pastor Lambrick who had reported some suspicious activity in and out of the house - and Eleanor had wondered at herself for not remembering about this place sooner. Well, she had been busy. The hanging had left the pastor in a frenzy of preaching and oh so eager to please. Eleanor had promised him to look into it, urging him not to trouble the slowly convalescing Governor. That excuse should hold for one meeting, and beyond that, she had entirely different plans.

“Hornigold is dead.” Not what she had expected to hear. “I killed him.”

The body had not been recovered. “I know,” was her reply. “I sent him to you.”

She would be lying if she claimed that Hornigold’s death chagrined her. No, she was simply aggravated at his unfounded pride. She had secretly had his chair tracked down and brought to Max, in case someone was in the mood to practice her dream bonfire. It had been that sort of a night.

“ _You_ sent him,” Flint repeated, not to buy himself more time, but to adjust the layout of the campaign in his mind. It must be sheer hubris, but Eleanor wished him, specifically, to acknowledge _who_ had orchestrated the battle on this side, however disastrous the outcome. “But you failed to anticipate Blackbeard’s arrival.”

“Most people don’t appreciate being placed second two times in a row.”

Once, back when her and Flint’s visions for Nassau had been aligned, he might have warned her about her own black spot, big enough to cover the whole island and then some. But those days had passed. She had built him up, but when his help had been needed the most, he hadn’t been there. And now, he was in league with her oldest enemy. She had pitted everything that she had against them, and they had emerged victorious. For now.

“Mr. Scott is dead.” Did he _have_ to recite the whole goddamn list?

“ _I_ didn’t kill him,” she forced out through gritted teeth. He must have been grooming her as a bargaining chip from the start. “He betrayed me first.”

“He loved you.”

“He wanted to be free of me.” She couldn’t have made it so without her father’s signature. She _could_ have forged it, but. Well. There was something to be said for being certain that not everybody was at liberty to jump ship without a moment's notice. “What kind of love is that?”

You thought you knew a person and then you discovered that all along, you had been dealing with a mere shadow. It should have been a terrible blow, but the thing was, it was still less incredible than some other recent developments.

“Whatever helps you sleep at night.” She heard no judgment in Flint’s tone, and that made it two of them with empty cups. “There are Spanish spies in town.”

Not a question, though she doubted that his propaganda agents had been able to intercept them - he would not have brought it up otherwise. “They have learnt from the _Urca_ fuck-up.” On a more serious note: “They are well aware where the treasure has gone.” She and Rogers could not have withheld that piece of information from Havana.

Flint nodded like he had expected that. “It won’t be their first target, though.”

She moved her chair closer, the threat of violence be damned. It never used to be an issue with _him_. “So I ask you, _which_ Nassau would you rather go back to, a peaceful town under a humbled Governor, or a smouldering ruin?” Her whole “reign” had been dedicated to avoiding a repetition of the Rosario Raid. “You, who _swore_ to me that you would defend her.”

He didn’t break the eye contact. “You have been told how you can avoid that.”

“Which part of not wanting to hang is so hard to understand for you?” she snapped.

When he rose to his feet, she was fully prepared for the armistice to be over. Instead, he walked over to the bookcase and opened a hidden compartment with a bottle of brandy, snatched before it could reach some governor’s table. One had to wonder what else he had squirrelled away. She had seen squirrels in Boston, unlike animals that existed only as book illustrations.

“You build a place, and then it declares you its enemy,” she said after sampling the brandy. It was everything that it had promised to be. “I always thought I wouldn’t take a pardon. Wouldn’t _have_ to. But then it was that, or the noose.”

“You have done well for yourself given the circumstances.” No insult could have stunned her half as much. “I used to envy you, you know.”

“Why the fuck would you envy me?” She used to be just as proud as he still was.

It was not a table conversation, which made her miss her former nook all the more. She had never attached excessive value to her trinkets, but she _had_ valued her working and private spaces.

“Nobody judged who you fucked,” he explained. “I thought, this is it, this is how things _should_ be.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, please, nobody judged _them_ , but everybody and their dog judged _me_. Everybody always knows who I’m fucking and how I’m fucking them, and holds it against me. How do you think that feels?”

“I think you have a thicker skin than to give a damn.”

That was beside the point. She drank the brandy like rum, but never forgetting herself. She couldn’t afford to be careless, not again.

“ _You_ had no idea,” she remembered with a stab of fondness. “So you punched the living daylights out of him.” She laughed at the sheer absurdity. “Ever the valiant knight.” It could have been calculated to make her single him out, but she was certain that he had meant every punch. “If it was a choice between death and fucking your way to freedom, which would you choose?” Wouldn’t he use every tool at his disposal if survival was worth it?

“I wouldn’t know.” He seemed briefly discomfited. “I have never been in that position.”

“Well, neither have _I_ ,” she informed him, daring him to contradict her.

He did no such thing, topping up her drink instead. “You’re on a boat with three people, in the open sea, no land or sails in sight, and you have just run out of fresh water. Whose blood do you drink first and whom do you save for last?”

She laughed - it brought her back to some other anti-sobriety games that they used to play. Gin was a cheap kind of forgetting, a liquid ladder; rum and its kin were for wheedling out confessions. “List my potential victims. You aren’t allowed to bring people back from the dead, mind you.”

He paused. “That does narrow it down. Max, your new chambermaid,” Eleanor tensed, “and Rogers.”

He was well-informed, but not _that_ well-informed, she reminded herself, nor was he a mind-reader. “Well, obviously I start with the maid.”

He smirked. “Obviously.”

She took a sip from her cup. “Max must be the last because she is the least likely to attack me.”

“Or the least likely to win the fight?”

Ha, about that. “Your turn,” she said quickly. “Mr. Bones, the current Maroon leader, Long Prick Silver.”

Flint’s face did not twitch. “It’s a Queen, by the way. The Maroons are ruled by a Queen.”

“Consider me amazed,” she replied sarcastically. “By your smug look as if you deserve all the credit.”

“Billy is tall,” he reasoned. “Which means a lot of blood.” She toasted to the infallible logic. “But I wouldn’t get the chance to drink it because Silver and the Queen would have killed me over it right away.”

“To nightmare allies!” was her next toast. “Can you believe it, though? The same poor bastard that you had stashed away in my office. What the hell is wrong with this world?”

Sometimes, there was nothing for it but to laugh about it, never mind that neither she nor Max had been particularly amused.

“ _Is_ it long, though?” she asked. “Have you checked yet?”

Flint’s expression remained stubbornly inscrutable. “Did _you_?”

“Oh, yes, me and Bonny both. Can’t resist a pair of handcuffs.” She had been a _mite_ busy at the time, and with Flint’s mess for that matter. “Charles, a martyr for the cause. One dramatic exit, and everything that has led up to it suddenly looks heroic.” Would someone extend _her_ that courtesy, just once. Someone besides Rogers.

They had run out of people to put in the boat depressingly quickly. The mismatched chairs creaked, the wind rustling through the loosened roofing, already fallen into disrepair. Not a soul outside to be heard.

“Rogers got you out of the cell when nobody else would have bothered. Just how angry _are_ you about it?”

“Angry?” She snorted. “I’m fucking _furious_.” She supposed that, in the end, she and Flint were running two parallel races of who would betray whom first. “But I haven’t strayed from my dream. The dream _you_ have abandoned.”

He chose not to rise to the provocation. “I have subjected my dreams to England’s gnarled caprices twice, and I’m not demented enough to allow a _third_ time.”

“Even if Nassau has to burn for it?”

He smiled a strange half-smile, running his fingers over _Phaedo’s_ cover and then clasping them together, as if he couldn’t quite make them settle. He had always been such a fidgety bastard. “Was there ever anything real? You _were_ a friend to me once?”

She was glad that he had called her a friend and not a surrogate daughter or younger sister - it would have been straight to the top of the list with him then. “Just because we are on the opposing sides now doesn’t mean we couldn’t have succeeded together.” They had come so tantalising _close_. He had told her then, on the balcony, that if they weren’t careful, they might survive their gambits. Unlike him, she never doubted that she should. “What happens if you win this war? Will you disappear like Avery?”

“It would not be the worst of fates.” He had just thought of another game: three people to take with you to a desert island, the dead allowed.

She stared at him hard. “I do have one last serious question to ask before you dig up more booze. Where the fuck did your hair go?”

And may the best one win.


End file.
